Congressional News and Discussion

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Well, the good news is that I thought I had read the bill passed. Sounds like it made it through committee and hadn’t been voted on yet.

That so many GOP are planning to vote for this is a bit terrifying. They must assume they will never need to run again as dozens of them will have their constituents directly and immediately impacted, which will hurt those congresscritters in the worst way - they will lose support and perhaps their cushy job.

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The really terrifying bit is that many of the “hardliner” Republicans who refused to vote for this bill did so because they want bigger cuts to Medicaid before they’ll support it.

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It occurs to me there is a thing in coding where you pull a bunch of pieces out of a program and see what turns out to be unnecessary and what breaks things. Only a fool would try it on live code though.

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It happens in systems administration too. We call it a “scream test”.

As in: “what does this server do? Does anyone know what it’s for? There’s no contact details recorded. Tell you what, we’ll shut it down, and see if anyone screams.”

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Musk’s favorite strategy for running his companies and government.

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An excellent reminder that “serious” does not imply “rational” or “intelligent”.

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Isaacson started from the idea that Musk is a visionary and twists everything to fit that framing. But being “serious” about getting employees to work harder by lighting artificial fires is in no way the compliment he presents it as. Read between the lines – and actually listen to Vivian instead of taking Elon’s word about her – and it’s pretty clear he’s just a stupid asshole.

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It’s the move fast and break things mindset of tech bros.

It actually didn’t even make it out of committee.

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I feel a bit better about this particular issue, at least.

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Hopefully he won’t back down this time.

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Republicans: “It’s fascist and corrupt, but is it corrupt enough?”

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Unanimously? Damn. I understand why this is politically popular but it’s still misguided and will create a variety of perverse incentives. Encouraging employers to shift more compensation towards cash tips is the last thing we should be doing.

I’ve said this before, and I know that some here disagree, but if low wage workers are paying too much of their income in Federal taxes then just lower their tax rate. Simple, and it’s been done before. No need to carve out some special benefit that only applies to tipped workers and not other workers who get paid the same for their work only through wages rather then tips.

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Look for lots of executive bonuses to suddenly be classified as “tips.” Helping the little guy is never the goal for these asshats. It is always “How can we get what you have?”

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And don’t forget that bribes to government officials will be tax-free as well, now that the Supreme Court ruled in Snyder v. United States that “gratuities” paid to government officials for past actions are totally legal.

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I don’t think tips will be counted as income when you apply for credit. Or as income on your credit report.

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